BAHANDI Eastern Visayas Trade Fair, brings the “BAHANDI” – treasures and wealth, of Region 8 to the heart of Metro Manila at SM Megamall. The 5-day exhibit and fair runs through October 4-8, 2018.

The event provides a marketing platform for big buyers to meet and source products that are high-quality and uniquely Eastern Visayas. This year’s Fair shall treat buyers and visitors to handcrafted fashion accessories, housewares, decors, furniture, and artisan food honed from island-living lifestyle of Region 8’s locals, yet increasingly becoming part of trendy items in domestic and world markets.

To date, a total of 134 producer-exhibitors from the Homestyles and Wearables and Processed Food sectors are participating in the Fair. On exhibit will be prototypes of newly developed products and food innovation resulting from product development assistance under DTI’s One Town-One Product (OTOP) and Go Lokal! Programs. The producers include those who are currently supplying Go Lokal! Stores in Rustan’s, SM, Glorietta, Robinsons Place, City Mall, Duty Free Philippine Fiesta Mall, selected Shopwise Stores, Enchanted Kingdom theme park, and in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Bahandi 2018 is an avenue to forge long-term partnerships with buyers in the local and global market. It aims to increase the visibility of MSMEs in the domestic, as well as global market, and build-up buyers’ confidence on their reliability, dependability and consistency as suppliers of quality goods.♦

The Export Development Council (EDC) together with Department of Trade and Industry 8 (DTI 8) conducted a Stakeholder’s Engagement Session on the Philippine Export Development Plan (PEDP) 2018-2022.

On September 5, 2018 at the Hotel Alejandro, Deputy Executive Director Emma Mijares of the Export Development Council (EDC) presented the PEDP to the group of direct and indirect micro, small and medium enterprise exporters, representatives of government agencies, freight forwarding enterprises, academe representatives, and members of the press.

These 63 participants were oriented about the current situation of the Philippine Export and how the PEDP was crafted to suit the needs of the export environment.

PEDP is anchored on the commitments of the Philippine Development Plan (PDP). Instead of the usual 3-year rolling plan under the Export Development Act (RA 7844), the PEDP extends until the end period of the PDP.

The Plan focuses on three main strategies : (1) Improve the Overall Climate for Export Development; (2) Exploit Existing and Prospective Opportunities from Trade Agreements; and (3) Design Comprehensive Packages of Support for selected Products and Services Sectors. These are necessary to achieve the country’s targeted US$ 122-130.8 Billion exports of goods and services by 2022.

For 2017, topping the market were the country’s key export sectors from electronics, processed food and beverages, and IT-BPM and Tourism. In Region 8, copper metal, gold, and chemicals accounted 79.9 percentage share in export products.

In the 2018-2022 plan, DTI envisions to build champions from the processed food and wearables and homestyles sector.

A workshop was conducted to discuss programs that can help realize the strategies. Among the proposed programs that surfaced was the streamlining of export processing procedures.

The issue has been resolved by a discussion of government-private sector partnership, e.g. link between DTI and Air21, to support logistical concerns of MSMEs.

The removal of unnecessary regulatory impediments, enhancement of export sectors’ innovative capacity, and improvement on access to trade finance will be reinforced by the PEDP along with suitable macroeconomic policies to support productivity and competitiveness of MSMEs in the export market.♦